The Vaterländische Front (VF, English: "Fatherland's Front" also translated as "Patriotic Front") was an Austrofascist political party. Established on 20 May 1933 by Christian Social Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss as a single-party along the lines of Italian Fascism, it advocated Austrian nationalism and independence from Nazi Germany on the basis of protecting Austria's Catholic religious identity from what they considered a Protestant-dominated German state.